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Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Regarding Untoward and People and Rejection and Stuff

Sometimes I'm going to talk about Untoward, because I need as many venues as I have at my disposal to get word out that, primarily, my interest these days is in publishing fiction, i.e. either getting my own fiction out into the world (where hopefully it will elicit a reaction, either positive or negative (and no, truthfully I don't care which, I care more that you react than not)) or publishing other people's great fiction. And the latter of which is the point I most want to talk about here. Untoward Magazine exists and I hope you'll send something our way. We might reject it. I've been rejected, as a certain previous post will attest, probably somewhere in the 90-95% range to this point in my career. It's a part of it. Anyone will tell you that. This isn't new to anyone who has tried to get published. It's hard to create a name for yourself in the world of fiction publishing. But it's good that you're trying, too. Keep reading and ignoring posts like another of mine that appears here today on Literary Equations. The important thing is that you're building relationships with other people, so step out of your shell a bit. That is the realization that has kept me going throughout all of this, that it doesn't much matter to me if my stories get accepted (I'll keep crafting and developing my style just the same), what matters is I don't lose sight of the fact that I want to know and engage other people, even though that's not what comes most naturally to me. I force myself to do it because I know how much happier I am when I feel I've successfully related to someone else (and in this case, relating is almost exclusively positive, or I'm not happy if I've had a negative relational experience with someone. I think most people feel the same way, no?). All right, so that's my rant for now, but maybe you have some comments? I'd love to hear them.

praise for what we do here

From Online University Lowdown - Bob Einstein’s Literary Equations : Like the maths and sciences, the best, most thorough examples of literary criticism require painstaking exploration and a detailed report of the findings – all of which blogger Matt Rowan delivers.

From The New Dork Review of Books - Matt Rowan writes one of the best, most intellectually intense amateur book blogs out there. Definitely a blog to check out if you miss your college literature survey courses.